31 replies to this topic

[anyweb]

Note: this article assumes that you have previously captured an image using WDS as outlined in the following post: how can I capture an Image using WDS


Part 1 - add boot.wim to WDS


Step 1. Get your Windows Vista DVD ready.

Step 2. Insert the DVD and start WDS (windows deployment services) gui.

Step 3. In the Left Pane of WDS, select boot images

Step 4. In the Right Pane, right click the mouse and choose 'Add Boot Image'.



Step 5. In the Add Image Wizard, click the Browse button and browse to the Sources folder on your Vista DVD that you inserted in Step 2.


Step 6. Highlight the file called boot.wim and click Open, once done Click Next



Step 7. In the next window, set the Image name from "Microsoft Windows Longhorn Setup (x86)" to 'Windows Vista/XP WDS deploy'

Step 8. Change the image description to 'Deploy Windows using WDS from windows-noob.com'



Step 9. Click next to review the settings, and next again to proceed.



Step 10. After the file copying is complete click on Finish.

[anyweb]

Part 2. Add a captured image to WDS

Step 1. Open WDS and on the left pane select Install Images.

Step 2. Select Captured Images below this and in the right pane, right-click and select Add Install Image

Step 3. Choose browse, and browse to the folder that contains the image you captured previously usually found in RemoteInstall\Images\captured images if you followed the previous guide. Highlight the wim file and choose open.

Step 4. Click next to see the list of available captured images, select the one(s) you want to add and click next. Review the choices you made and click next again. After a few moments you'll be told the selected images were added to the server, click Finish to end the wizard. The captued image will now be listed in the WDS Install images/captured images pane on the right hand side (see screenshot).

Attached Images

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[anyweb]

Part 3 - PXE boot to the WDS server

Step 1. Make sure the Network card is set to 'on w/PXE' in your bios and that you control the boot order so that it boots to PXE before anything else

Step 2. When you get the Windows Boot Manager screen after PXE booting to the WDS server, select the 'Windows Vista Setup-Deploy' option (may be labelled differently, but this label was defined in Part 1, step 7 of this post)

Step 3. After Windows PE boots you'll be presented with a Install Windows wizard, select your chosen Locale and Keyboard or input method and click next.

Step 4. When prompted enter your domain username and password, enter them and click ok to continue.

eg: Username= ris2\administrator
Password= xxxxxxxxxx

Step 5. Select the operating system you want to install from the ones in the list, in this example it is Windows Vista Ultimate Capture en-US X86. Click Next to continue.

Step 6. Where do you want to install windows? highlight the drive/partition and click next to continue or click advanced drive options if you want to format the drive, and then click on format and ok (otherwise the previous Windows installation will be renamed to Windows.old).

Step 7. Click next to continue, Windows setup will start the installation process (copying files, expanding files, installing features, installing updates, completing installation).

Congratulations, you have now successfully deployed a previously captured image using WDS.

If you found this article useful then please digg it.

[A5BenWillis]

Has anyone been able to capture then deploy an XP image yet? I can capture fine but my image doesnt show up in the menu when trying to redeploy to the very machine that the image was captured from.

Ben in SC

[anyweb]

hi Ben

i've tested this and it works fine for me (both XP images and Vista)

cheers
anyweb

[Steve B]

Great tutorial on WDS. It was a great help.

Thanks.

Any change of one on multi casting?

[feeks]

Part 3 - PXE boot to the WDS server

Step 1. .... Step 5. All good!

Step 5. Select the operating system you want to install from the ones in the list, in this example it is Windows Vista Ultimate Capture en-US X86. Click Next to continue.

WDS responds with a "Windows could not display the images available for installation." and bombs! The account I am using is the domain administrator account so I don't believe that it is a privileges issue. The wim security is Auth Users read/execute.

I have imaged an x64 Dell Dual core XPSP3 the image records as an x86! I have created x64 and x86 capture images and have not encountered any issues with the capture I am simply not able to deploy an image. I turned on Tracing but this didn't tell me a whole lot.

I have a sysprep configuration along with oem drivers in the same location and name as the .wim. The server is 2K3 SP2 and the wim is 15Gb the capture images are 6.0.6000 and 6.0.6001 and I get the same result with the WINPE boot/capture. All images have been created via the mmc.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

[feeks]

can you explain what you are looking for exactly and is it WDS related ? if not please start a new topic...

I think Steve B wants a tute on Multi-casting!

[anyweb]

what dell model are you having problems with ? and does it have the latest bios version ?

did you use the MSDN windows vista DVD or some other Windows Vista DVD ?

please post this info along with the original problem in a new thread, i'm closing this topic as it's getting confusing to others

cheers
anyweb

[ckltd740]

Is it necessary to create a new boot image everytime you want to capture or deploy a new image? I haven't started following the instructions from this post yet, but was able to complete all the steps from your Image Capture post successfully and already have a boot image that was created for the capture.

[anyweb]

no its not necessary, once the boot images are created you can reuse them

[BigJonMX]

so after Part 2 step 4 i now have listed on the right of my "XP Captured Images" TWO images with the same name !!
And my pc still wont do anything other than WDS Capture Image
(i wish we'd gone with Ghost! - this is so ridiculously complicated)
Any tips PLEASE

[anyweb]

have you tried refreshing, and have you followed all the steps in the guides properly ?

yes WDS takes some work but once it\s setup its straightforward to manage

[thomas]

hi Ben

i've tested this and it works fine for me (both XP images and Vista)

cheers
anyweb

Once I boot my Vista box from a capture image I get the setup wizard over and over again.....ever seen that?

Thanks for the help.

[Malik4u]

Hi,

Here you mention we need the DVD to have Boot Images, but how to get such DVD if your Laptop is shipped without any DVD ?
For example HP Laptop is shipped with Windows 7 and there is no DVD, so i should create the system Image and Burn Disks ? Will that Disks help me ?

OR

I can use any DVD of any model of PC ?

[anyweb]

do you have an MSDN or Technet subscription, if so download the ISO version of Windows 7 Enterprise and burn that directly to a DVD,

or there's even a 90 day trial download here

http://technet.micro...r/cc442495.aspx

cheers
niall.

[Malik4u]

Hi,

Thank you for your answer, why you recommend Enterprise DVD ?
For example if i have a DVD of Windows 7 professional (not shipped with HP Laptop, but some other disk) wil lit work ?

do you have an MSDN or Technet subscription, if so download the ISO version of Windows 7 Enterprise and burn that directly to a DVD,

or theres a 90 day trial download here

http://technet.micro...r/cc442495.aspx

cheers
niall.

[MacRasta]

Hi AnyWeb, thanks for this excellent Guide!

I followed your guide step by step, then I had to inject some drivers to an image, all of that works finally.
It's a bit confusing to me what image to use to make a custom boot.wim, and how to add it in WDS. But ok, after 2 days I found it.

But now there's something bothering me:
When I look in the boot images, I see 2 deployment images ... This I don't understand ...
Could you tell me which is the correct one to use? And can I delete the other one?? (See attached JPG)
You'll see "WDS-Custom500B Deployment" twice, with 2 different dates, while I made only 1 Deployment image on 23/07 ...

I'm a bit stumped here ... dunno which image to use ...

Could you help me please?

Many thanks!!

Attached Images

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[Morketh]

Hi AnyWeb, thanks for this excellent Guide!

I followed your guide step by step, then I had to inject some drivers to an image, all of that works finally.
It's a bit confusing to me what image to use to make a custom boot.wim, and how to add it in WDS. But ok, after 2 days I found it.

But now there's something bothering me:
When I look in the boot images, I see 2 deployment images ... This I don't understand ...
Could you tell me which is the correct one to use? And can I delete the other one?? (See attached JPG)
You'll see "WDS-Custom500B Deployment" twice, with 2 different dates, while I made only 1 Deployment image on 23/07 ...

I'm a bit stumped here ... dunno which image to use ...

Could you help me please?

Many thanks!!

I have this same problem with having the 2 boot images. I followed all of his instructions step by step except for doing the sysprep as he does not have a guide for sysprepping xp. I used this guide for sysprepping XP so I am not sure how he did not get duplicate boot images.
When you right click those boot images and look at properties... the one that is the correct date that I did this on is using the file name "Windows XP Capture.wim"
The one that is created on 5/9/2008 is using "boot.wim" so that is the one that I used since it was boot.wim that I pulled from the Vista Business 32bit SP1 cd.
Windows XP Capture.wim is something I did earlier in his step by step guide.

Not sure why I have 2 either..

When I try to image my computer though I get a Boot/BCD error anyways so does not look like it works for me

[Morketh]

Okay I was able to get it down to where I only have 1 image showing but my problem is that once I actually deploy them image when the computer goes to boot back up after imaging I receive the windows boot manager screen with a \boot\bcd file error 0xc000000f "an error occurred while attempting to read the boot configuration data"

I have removed WDS 3 times and reinstalled and followed the how-to STEP BY STEP!!! 3 times and still I receive this error everytime after I deploy the image and the computer goes to boot back up.

Any help with how to fix this? What is wrong with my image?